


loves robots.

by WanderingCreep



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Bullet to the Head, Christmas Spirit, Coney Island, Dorks in Love, Ferris Wheels, Gun Violence, Hot Chocolate, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, Mindfuck, Pet Names, Rain, Relapsing, Religious Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Tumblr Prompt, Tyrell does not understand personal space, Umbrellas, Winter, break-ins, elliot is a dork too, pondering, sharing cigarettes, sometimes tyrell is a dork, tumblr tag, tyrell likes sugar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:12:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 18,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5179838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingCreep/pseuds/WanderingCreep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elliot and Tyrell ride on the Ferris wheel and talk about death, or,<br/>"two idiots decide to be in love." <br/>open for requests and prompts</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. loves robots.

loves robots.

 

 

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t supposed to bring Tyrell Wellick of all people to the original site of fsociety; but really, who would know? And it wasn’t like he was telling him everything- just the minor details, you know? Wait, no. What do you know? You aren’t real.

But Tyrell. Tyrell is real. He is real and he’s holding the ancient wire door open for Elliot, looking at him expectantly, like, _come on, you dumbass, get in the_ _car_.

Elliot allows his feet to walk him into the Ferris wheel car while he tries to stop himself from sliding Tyrell a suspicious sideways eye. Now that he thinks about it, this was the man who had basically confided in him that he’d murdered a woman on a rooftop one night. He’d strangled her to death with his bare hands and to top it all off, he’d actually enjoyed it.

By all definitions, Tyrell Wellick was a sick bastard. A sadist. A dominant force that was equal parts intriguing and terrifying. When he’d shown up in Elliot’s apartment, just bursting through the door with a finger to his lips, like he’d anticipated Elliot understandably freaking the fuck out, Elliot had thought that he’d come there to kill him. He’d pulled on these blue latex gloves over his hands, the kinds hospital workers wear, staring Elliot down with that blank slate face that made Tyrell Wellick an almost impossible variable to solve for. Elliot would be lying if he said he hadn’t tensed up at the closeness of Tyrell. Naturally, he tensed whenever anyone invaded his personal space as thoroughly as Tyrell did on a regular basis, but standing this close to a man who’d just admitted to murder made things much less comfortable.

Oh well.

Too late now. While Elliot had been lost in his internal struggle (as usual, he would guess), Tyrell had come up behind him and closed the door with the both of them still inside. The little blue car had already begun its creaking dissent into the sky, swaying softly as it rose higher and higher over the grounds of Coney Island. Elliot is staring holes into the side of Tyrell’s head.

If the man had really wanted to hurt him, wouldn’t he have done it already, in one of the dark alleys of Coney Island or even on the way here? Wouldn’t he have strangled him too, back in the apartment, with his fancy gloves and slate blue eyes? Still, Elliot likes to come here to think sometimes when he's out; it's a tiny pocket of the universe that belongs to him, unspoiled in all its sticky Coke stains and ancient rust peeling in the corner. It feels kind of like blasphemy to be inviting Tyrell Wellick into it.

“If you have something to say, I’d suggest you go ahead and spit it out,” says Tyrell abruptly. “It is considered rude to stare, after all.”

He’s been staring out at the island skyline, watching the blue sky taper off into the waters of Brighton Beach, chin in one hand. Now, he’s looking at Elliot without even so much as turning his head with an amused smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Elliot continues staring. It doesn’t matter now that he’s been found out.

“You killed someone,” is all he can say. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to say at the moment, but he had to say something. How did someone just, not talk about a recent murder? Especially when the murderer was sitting right across from you like a normal guy?

Tyrell’s gaze slides back towards the skyline. “I did. I thought we went over this already?”

“I mean, it’s a little hard to enjoy a Ferris wheel ride when the guy riding with you strangled someone to death,” replies Elliot. His hands are spread on his knees, fingers bending gently at the joints. No reason to keep their voices down; there was no one up here except the seagulls and the two of them.

“Well, try not to think about it then,” says Tyrell, a smile on his thin lips. He closes his eyes against the gentle caress of the salty sea wind, and if you didn’t know that he’d killed a woman on a rooftop, he would’ve been the picture of a relaxed businessman looking to escape his day-to-day troubles. But Elliot knew.

“You’re a murderer.”

There’s no malice or scorn in Elliot’s voice. Not even a hint of conviction. More like a statement of some sort, like a casual conversation about the weather.

“Such a hefty word,” Tyrell says. It sounds a little mocking the way he says it. But Elliot has learned that this is kind of the way Tyrell speaks. He’s still smiling. “I mean,” he continues, with his eyes still shut against the world, “aren’t you kind the same?”

Elliot furrows his brow. _What?_

“How do you mean?”

“You have Terry Colby’s head on a spike now, Elliot,” explains Tyrell. “You’ve singlehandedly taken down the largest conglomerate in the world with the very weapon they used to build it up. The world is caving in on itself. People are taking up arms and convincing themselves that this revolution isn’t a bloody Salem witch hunt on every Evil Corp employee and powerhouse bigwig in the world. You’re the murder of a stale way of life, don’t you see. You killed Evil Corp.”

Tyrell doesn’t open his eyes for any of his speech. He’s still got a hint of a smile on his face as he speaks even. It’s kind of unnerving, and maybe Elliot wants to get off now.

“That’s…not even the same thing,” he says. “I’m talking about a human life.”

“Why isn’t Evil Corp a life?” asks Tyrell. Now he turns to Elliot, leaning his cheek on the heel of his palm. He looks relaxed and at ease there, like he belongs here in the rusty blue Ferris wheel car despite his clean cut suit and impeccable hairstyle. Elliot thinks that maybe underneath all of the pomp and upper crust exterior, Tyrell is just like everyone else. Dare he say just like himself?

Elliot shrugs. “What’s to say it is?”

Tyrell grins. “What’s to say it isn’t? Evil Corp was created by humans. Every monster that ever was, was human. What, did you think Evil Corp was a faceless corporation? It may look like a gray eyesore made of concrete and glass on the outside, but it wouldn’t be Evil Corp if there weren’t any blackened greedy hearts controlling the innermost workings of it. It _is_ a life, Elliot. Maybe not the best example of a worthwhile life, but a living thing nonetheless. And you’ve killed it.”

That’s a really sympathetic way of looking at things. But wasn’t Tyrell against Evil Corp too? Having been fired by them and all.

“So, what? Are we turning this into a dick measuring contest or something?” asks Elliot. “Whose kill was better?”

He wouldn’t put it past Tyrell Wellick, the sadistic weirdo.

But Tyrell shakes his immaculately combed head. “Not at all. I’m simply saying that before you crucify me for my sins, perhaps you should have a look at your own.”

“Quite the saint.”

“You flatter me, Elliot.”

They sit in silence for a while, the car turning round and round in a steady clockwise measure. The seagulls call to each other in the distance, the breeze blows gently. Its okay, for once. Elliot won’t ruin the moment. Instead, he stews over the fact that Tyrell is actually sort of right. He _is_ a murderer, but not in the way Tyrell thinks.

He got the one person he might’ve felt something other than uncertainty and anxiety, murdered in cold blood. Really, he thought he’d been saving her. It was his fault.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

It’s Tyrell. He’s looking at Elliot with uncharacteristically soft eyes now. It takes Elliot a moment to realize that Tyrell is, indeed, talking to him.

“You looked troubled,” says Tyrell. “I meant no harm in what I said earlier. I mean, you’re a far better person than I am; that much and more you should be proud of. You’ve done the people a great kindness.”

Elliot shakes his head. “It’s not that,” he says quietly. “You’re not really wrong. About being a murderer, I mean.”

Tyrell gives him a look that says ‘elaborate’. Well, may as well.

“Shayla…she was, um, a girl who lived across the hall from me. She was my…uh, my girlfriend? For a little bit. She was in an abusive relationship with this thug. I hacked him. Got him arrested. Turns out, he got his brother to do his dirty work while he was in prison. They killed her. Slit her throat and left her in a trunk,” says Elliot.

_Cold and alone, scared, and dead._

“I’m sorry to hear that,” says Tyrell. It sounds weird to hear him of all people apologize.

Elliot shakes his head. “She didn’t deserve it.”

Tyrell nods. There’s an awkward pause after, but its kind of welcome by Elliot. He doesn’t really want to keep talking anyway. Instead, he counts the number of crosshatches in the wire windows of the ride car. He gets to _sixty-six, sixty-seven,_ _and then_ -

“Do you miss her?” asks Tyrell, right out of the blue. Wow, how insensitive.

“Of course. But I’ll forget her eventually.” Elliot kind of wishes he had kept that part to himself. But he forgot. He always forgets.

Tyrell nods though, and something about him seems…relieved?

Elliot thinks that’s the end of it-

“Did you love her?”

Wow, Tyrell was stepping on all the wrong buttons right now. Elliot looks out the window, anything to keep from looking Tyrell in the eye anymore. “I don’t know.”

Tyrell has a pattern, Elliot thinks. He asks a question, waits a deemed polite amount of time, then asks another question. It’s so he doesn’t seem too eager, doesn’t let anything slip during his interrogation. Elliot readies himself for another question. He’s noticed that the questions get more and more personal. That’s not comforting.

“Did you kiss her?”

Ah, and there we go.

Elliot sighs gently. “Once.”

“Would you have kissed her every time you saw her?”

Jesus, what was this Twenty Questions?

“I don’t know.”

Silence. The wheel goes around once.

“Would you kiss her now if she’d had one more day?”

“I don’t know.”

Silence. Longer now. Tyrell is thinking very hard, Elliot thinks.

“Would you-“

“Is there a point to any of this? I don’t…I don’t really want to talk about Shayla anymore. If that’s okay,” Elliot says finally. He turns to look out the window, balancing his chin on his hand. Tyrell nods. He doesn’t apologize for prying, though. If he did, it would have been a lie anyway.

The Ferris wheel goes around two more times before it finally jerks its squeaking joints to a halt. The car swings a little at the sudden stop; Elliot almost pitches forward from the momentum. Tyrell’s hand flashes out, grabs Elliot’s knee to steady him. Elliot murmurs his thanks and wastes no time in getting out of the car. The tension in the car drains out through the open door as Tyrell leaves next, and together, they walk away from the old ride in silence.

Far away from the clutter of the Coney Island-goers, Tyrell speaks again.

“I apologize if I overstepped my bounds,” he says. He’s looking straight ahead, walking with his hands hanging relaxed in the pockets of his dress pants. Elliot glances up at him and shrugs.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“If you don’t mind me asking though,” Tyrell continues, and that’s how Elliot knows that the apology was a curtesy and not out of real sympathy, “if you thought so much of her, why…how could you forget her? Shouldn’t she have been an imprint on your life?”

Elliot shrugs, knows he’ll sound heartless if tells Tyrell the truth. Tyrell’s been nothing short of truthful for as long as Elliot’s known him. Maybe a little sadistic and secretive, but that’s what made him such an interesting subject.

“I forget everyone eventually. They come and go, faces in a crowd. But, I guess that’s the norm when you live in New York of all fucking places,” he says, laughing humorlessly. “Sometimes I remember again,” he murmurs, thinking of Darlene and Mr. Robot. The _real_ Mr. Robot. “But that’s harder. Maybe sometimes I just don’t want to remember.”

Tyrell nods quietly. “I can respect that. It’s good to remember sometimes, isn’t it?”

Elliot shrugs, though he isn’t really listening. He’s still walking when Tyrell suddenly stops dead in his tracks. He stops and turns back to face him, confusion etched across his features.

Tyrell is looking at him with something akin to disappointment. Why? Because Elliot said he forgets everyone eventually? That couldn’t be it, could it? But, then again, Tyrell was a man of hubris. He cared deeply about people’s opinion of him, wasn’t that what Mr. Robot had said to him once?

“What’s up?” he asks, shuffliing the few steps back towards Tyrell.

“Surely,” Tyrell says slowly, “surely you can’t forget everyone. Remembering is a good thing sometimes.”

Tyrell is always too close to Elliot it seems, touching him and the like. He’s very close now and vaguely Elliot thinks ‘ _there’s so much space in this parking_ lot, _but Tyrell is standing really closely to_ _me’_ , and his anxiety is a little antsy at the moment. He’s about to raise his voice a little to ask Tyrell to back off, but Tyrell’s hands are moving too quickly. They’re actually moving very slowly, but to Elliot’s frazzled mind, he’s moving at lightspeed.

Tyrell’s left hand his curled against Elliot’s neck, his thumb tucked under his jaw, and the other has slipped itself around his waist. His fingers are kind of curling into the fabric of Elliot’s hoodie, but the grip is loose enough to allow Elliot escape if he wants to. And maybe that’s why Tyrell is moving so slowly. Every movement he makes is a request; permission of sorts to keep touching Elliot this way. And maybe Elliot is giving it to him.

So Tyrell kisses him. It’s not like the Tyrell Elliot has gotten used to, hard and unreadable and cold and distant as a glacier. It’s weird.

Tyrell has really soft lips. Elliot’s lips are kind of chapped. Tyrell’s hands are kind of cold, especially the one that’s tucked under Elliot’s jaw, where the knuckles are cool against Elliot’s pulse. He holds him steady, like Elliot might slip out of his grip if he let up at all.

He kisses Elliot gently, all lips and a hint of tongue, and no teeth. Breathless, but not ragged. Taking, but not stealing. Searching, but reminding.

When he finally pulls away, he looks at Elliot. They’re still face-to-face, nose-to-nose. Elliot can feel Tyrell’s breath against his cheek, kind of gasping. He’d gotten more out of the kiss than Elliot had apparently. Not to say that he didn’t enjoy it, but he wasn’t sure if he did anyway. It felt good, like it was supposed to happen. Elliot…he could get used to it, he thinks.

There’s a hint of a smile pulling at Tyrell’s lips, more like a smug grin.

“You won’t forget about me, Elliot,” he says quietly against Elliot’s mouth. “I’ll make sure of that.”


	2. hazy grayson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tyrell and elliot inhale stardust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> send me prompts for this.

hazy grayson

 

 

Tyrell could get used to this.

It’s not really like him to be stretched out vertical on a horizontal bed, both of his feet hanging over the edge. He curls his toes in his socks –it’s not professional. Not the socks; lying here like this on Elliot’s bed in his tiny apartment covered in dust. He’s lying here on his back near the foot of Elliot’s tiny bed, cozy-tiny, aware of the two other occupants of the room: the black beta fish in his little cube of water, cheekily named Qwerty, which was equal parts clever and a special brand of childishly cheesy. It suited Elliot.

And of course, the man of the house itself was there as well. He’d taken up the front of the bed, lying in the opposite direction of Tyrell so that he wouldn’t have to make eye-contact with him or be touched really. It was strange. Tyrell wasn’t a man who really understood the concept of Elliot’s very strict ‘ _no_ _touching’_ rule. He believed in taking, and Elliot’s anxiety was the wall that had been put up in front of his metaphorical grabby-hands.

Elliot Alderson was having none of it.

“What’s you middle name, Elliot?”

Tyrell raises his head a little to see; Elliot’s eyes are half-lidded, staring up at the ceiling, his mouth slightly open. His chest is barely moving, which is weird because Elliot’s not usually this static. Tyrell doesn’t think it’s weird that he has memorized Elliot’s body language at all. He knows now that the way Elliot moves is weird, and it’s not because of where he lives. Every New Yorker carries themselves with some swagger; it’s their natural way of moving. They’ll usually never bump into any one person more than once, so manners aren’t really of common use. They also move like they have somewhere to be, like fish in a river current. They don’t dillydally, and they sure as hell don’t stop for anything. They’re hiveminded herds of multimedia gluttons.

But Elliot doesn’t move that way. He moves in jerky, erratic movements; kind of like a panicky animal. He doesn’t like to be touched, and sometimes, Tyrell has seen him do this weird ballet in the street to avoid being brushed against by passersby. He’s very stiff. The only thing that’s graceful about Elliot Alderson is his fingers. All ten of his fingers work wonders over a keyboard, quick and precise.

“Why?” asks Elliot after a long time. Tyrell was beginning to think he’d just dozed off with his eyes open. He shrugs.

“Mine’s Warner.”

Elliot doesn’t make an acknowledging noise, but Tyrell notes the quirk tugging up the corners of his mouth in a sheepish grin.

“Arian,” he says eventually. It’s Egyptian, means ‘mountain of strength,’ which Tyrell knows because he dipped into AllSafe’s employee database and snooped around Elliot’s application information. He knew Elliot’s middle name before he even told him; it just sounds better on Elliot’s tongue than a computer screen.

“Arian,” Tyrell repeats. “ _Arian_ ,” one more time, just to savor the way his throat hums when he verbalizes the ‘r’, and the way his mouth works to fit around the name.

There’s a sound, and the smell of smoke, and Tyrell sees a pearly grey whisp rise from Elliot’s end of the bed. It’s kind of a fire hazard to be smoking in bed of all places, but Tyrell won’t tell him what to do. They don’t do that with each other; it’s a lax…relationship? Friendship? Partnership.

“What’s the deal with middle names?” Elliot asks after a drag on the cigarette that makes his chest swell. “You ever gonna call me by it?”

Tyrell shakes his head, aware that Elliot can’t see him do it. “No. It’s just nice to learn things about you without having to hack you.”

Elliot pauses. Another whisp of smoke rises into the air. Tyrell can still make out the features of his face through the haze of gray.

“You can’t hack me,” he says then. “I can’t even hack myself. I’m a ghost.”

“I can hack you,” Tyrell insists. He knows he can. He already knows so much about Elliot anyways. Elliot shakes his head, but goes silent. Tyrell takes that as his cue to begin.

“I know that you forget things sometimes,” he says slowly, carefully. “I think it has something to do with your insecurities. I know you’re an anxious mess, I know you also go to a therapist about that as well. You don’t take the pills she gives you; I saw the bottle on the counter once. It’s still practically full. You suppress in order to feel numb.”

Tyrell props himself up on his elbows. “Your fish and the dog are the few things in life you really openly show affection towards. Why that is, I’m not quite sure. That’s not your dog either, is it? She doesn’t respond to any of your commands, so she must not have been here for that long.”

Flipper, the little house slipper of an animal, has been taken for a walk by a very… _jarring_ young woman. She has Elliot’s eyes, so they must be related, but Elliot doesn’t say much about her. She pops her gum way too loudly and her tank-top smells like smoke; every time she and Tyrell made eye-contact, it was scrutinizing on her end, confused on Tyrell’s. Tyrell is visiting while she’s gone.

“This might be stretching it a little,” Tyrell continues, “but you’ve got a bit of a messiah complex.”

“Wow, that’s…” says Elliot.

And Tyrell knows that coming from his own lips, it sounds kind of hypocritical to be reprimanding someone else for having an Olympian fixation.

“What I mean is, you distance yourself from others and use hacking as a way of getting over them. You say you want to save the world, but to you, the world is full of cockroaches. Sheep-minded people with trivial concerns and a scrambled mess for brains and consciousness. You’re a paradox, Elliot. Isn’t the whole point of fsociety to make people open their eyes to the real world? How can you do that when you look down on them so steeply?” says Tyrell.

“Because I’m not perfect,” says Elliot. He hasn’t lifted his head up at all; the nicotine in his lungs is probably keeping him sedated enough not to start a heated argument. As long as he has his own space and a cigarette, Tyrell has his attention. “I know I’m not perfect. I’m not trying to make people perfect or make the world perfect, because that doesn’t exist. I’m just trying to…to…”

Tyrell sits up fully, his eyebrows furrowing. “To what, Elliot?” he asks. “What are you trying to do?”

Elliot exhales long and slow. Smoke goes curling into the air above him.

“Exist,” he says quietly, almost inaudible to Tyrell. “I just don’t want to be alone anymore.”

Tyrell frowns and scoots up the mattress so that he’s sitting next to Elliot, leaning on one arm and peering down at him. “You hacked the world in order to gain the admiration of one billion people you don’t even know?”

“No, I mean; it’s…selfish. I thought that,” Elliot stares up at the ceiling and frowns, his eyes flittering back and forth, boring patterns in the plaster. “I thought that if I could just do this, if I could just stop screwing things up for one measly fucking second, that I could be someone. I wouldn’t just be the junkie in apartment thirty-eight anymore. I would be somebody.”

“Somebody,” Tyrell repeats, clinically, like it’s a disease. “Who are you trying to be?”

Elliot barks out a humorless laugh. It kind of startles Tyrell; he’s not heard Elliot sound so…frayed.

“Anybody other than me.”

Tyrell is disgusted by the fact that Elliot won’t even look in his direction when he speaks. If he had, he would’ve seen the way Tyrell’s eyes had flashed a crazy kind of blue, how he’d gone slightly gray. How could Elliot want to be anyone but himself? He was… _he was_ …

Tyrell glances from Elliot’s face to his fingers where the cigarette dangles precariously between his index and middle finger, tapping aimlessly against his chest. Without warning, he reaches over and plucks it from Elliot’s grasp, simply tilting his head curiously when he’s met with a confused, slightly offended brown gaze. “May I?” Tyrell asks belatedly, purposefully putting a bit of mocking in the delivery.

He brings the cigarette between his lips and takes a drag. It’s sort of clumsy and the paper stick feels awkward in his untrained hands, but he inhales the smoke like he’s seen Elliot do hundreds of times, but doesn’t quite let it escape into his lungs.

Then, Tyrell leans over, curling his body over Elliot’s still lying back on the bed, and kisses him. It’s just a press of the lips for a long moment, nothing special. And then Tyrell manages to coax Elliot into kissing back, if only just by opening his mouth a little bit more. Tyrell breathes the pearly fumes into him, imagines its stardust or fire smoke, and once Elliot breathes it in, he’ll start to glow and _see_.

 _See_.

 _Something_. See what Tyrell sees. See that Elliot is _something_ the way he is. An anomaly that is better left alone without words to describe it, because there are none.

…except maybe-

“ _Amazing_ ,” Tyrell murmurs against Elliot’s mouth. Thin white tendrils of smoke escape from the corners of their broken apart mouths, disappearing before they can even form pearl gray halos around their heads. God knows they’re no angels.

But at least for now, they can sit and smoke in their own weird little pocket of heaven.

 


	3. gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tyrell and elliot narrowly escape the apartment.

gone

 

 

Tyrell has this weird thing about showing up whenever Elliot just really wants to be alone and would rather be in the company of Qwerty and a line of morphine –well, maybe not morphine; he swears he’s clean, off the stuff for good. It’s really no different on today of all days, when Elliot forgets everyone again.

He forgot Darlene. _Again_.

How do you forget a whole person? A whole girl you spent your entire childhood with thoughts and feelings and memories and a voice that sounds vaguely familiar even when you swear for the life of you that she’s a total stranger?

It’s a bit of a shock when Tyrell comes sneaking in through the window, sitting on the windowsill after just climbing in through the fire escape. Elliot sees him only after he hears the window being wrenched open, and a head of blonde hair being pushed inside. Had Tyrell ever come up through the fire escape before?

At first, Elliot worries that he can’t remember who Tyrell is, but then, he thinks, even when he’d forgotten everyone else, Tyrell and his black Escalade were the only things he remembered clearly. Tyrell was a hard man to forget, as he so kindly liked to remind Elliot.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks, dragging the end of his t-shirt sleeve across his wet eyes. “Why didn’t you just come to the door?”

Tyrell shrugs, comes all the way inside. “That girl is down there. You know I can’t be here when she’s around,” he says, as if its Elliot’s fault Darlene is downstairs on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette after the whole ‘forgotten-sister’ incident. Elliot hated to see her so stressed out about his inconvenient memory loss.

Elliot shakes his head, leaning back again on his old couch. “I don’t really want to talk right now.”

“I know,” says Tyrell, standing in front of the coffee table, pristine in the classy suit and tie he seems to have infinite numbers of to wear. “That’s why I’m here.”

“You didn’t even know I was here.”

“Oh, please,” says Tyrell, with a curt roll of his eyes. “With all due respect, Elliot, we both know that there are three places you’re bound to be: the Island, AllSafe, or here. And it’s Saturday. It wasn’t like you’d be gone for the weekend.”

Elliot really hates the smug motherfucker sometimes. He avoids his eyes, staring with some new fascination at Qwerty in his fishbowl, at Flipper napping in a patch of afternoon sunlight on his bed. He sighs inwardly.

“I want to be,” he says languidly, like an offhanded thought. “Maybe.”

Tyrell glances at the coffee table. “Go away for the weekend? And do what?”

Elliot shrugs. “Not suffocate myself.”

Tyrell nods solemnly. Then he starts a slow pace in front of the coffee table, casting a sideways glance down at the obvious razor and paper roll barely hidden amongst the clutter, the one spot on the tabletop that looked…chalkier, more prone to wear than the rest.

“You want to run away?”

“Maybe. I just…I don’t know. I don’t want to think right now. I don’t want to know Shayla used to live across the hall. I don’t want to see fsociety all over the place. I don’t want to see Darlene or Angela or-“ Elliot stops abruptly, kneading his palms into his eyes. He breathes out slowly, and collapses back against the sofa.

Tyrell is quiet while this all happens. He watches Elliot press the heels of his palms into his eyes, and then mentally crosses both fingers that this idea of his doesn’t spoil.

“Why don’t you?”

Elliot opens his eyes halfway, tiredly slides them towards Tyrell.  “What?”

“Why don’t you go away? Just drop everything and run?”

“Because that’s fucking stupid and not to mention, difficult. Where would I go? I don’t drive anywhere.”

“Well, then for just a few days?”

“You offering?” Elliot had meant it as a joke, but Tyrell just looks at him. He stares, his blue gaze piercing, boring into Elliot’s shoulders and eyes and forehead. And Elliot sits up, looking incredulous.

“What the actual fuck,” he says.

“Let’s just get lost,” Tyrell offers. “Just leave right now.”

And maybe it’s the desperation for fucking air that Elliot so badly needs, but that, actually, isn’t a half bad idea.

The moment he makes eye contact with Tyrell, they hold each other’s gaze. It’s like a telepathic conversation between the two of them, but only two words are spoken.

_Where?_

_Anywhere_.

The next few minutes are a blur of Elliot scribbling a note and leaving it on the refrigerator, grabbing his jacket and his backpack with his laptop in it, and jumping out onto the fire escape with Tyrell. He can’t really stop the fluttering laugh that bubbles up through his chest; they’re suddenly ducking around like two thieves, trying to keep quiet enough so that Darlene doesn’t hear them below. Tyrell looks back at the sound and his lips quirk, like a smile. A tiny one, but a smile nonetheless, and it’s all Elliot’s.

They jump from the fire escape at its lowest level, and run, not quite a full sprint, but just enough of a jog to make it around the corner without being seen. The whole time, they’re still smiling and grinning and giggling, staying low like two cartoon burglars, and _wow_.

Elliot is actually enjoying himself. It’s like a little part of his brain has cleared up, like a storm cloud has been lifted. He doesn’t even realize that at some point, Tyrell has reached back and taken his hand and is pulling him along through the streets.

Tyrell has parked his Escalade in the little gravel lot down the sidewalk from Elliot’s apartment. He punches a button in his key fob that unlocks the doors with a shrill beep, and they climb in, their hair a little tussled and their faces warm. They stare at each other; it’s equal parts adorable, and equal parts stupid, what with Elliot nibbling on his lip to keep from beaming at Tyrell, who isn’t doing a very good job himself.

 

 

 

_Darlene,_

_Don’t worry about me; gone for the weekend. Please feed Qwerty and keep an eye on Flip. I owe you. Elliot_.

 

 

 

Elliot wakes up under a starry sky. Or more specifically a weeping willow tree. He doesn’t sit up just yet, instead wracking his brain to come up with an explanation as to how he got outside under the stars, lying in the grass with his hood pulled over his head. The stars twinkle above while he ponders, flickering like they’re goading him on.

And then he hears the noise to his left. Turning his head an inch to the left reveals Tyrell, sitting up, leaned back on his hands. He’s gazing out at something across the grass, his tie loosened and his dress shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Elliot isn’t sure why he noticed that last part.

He turns back towards the sky, deciding that Tyrell hasn’t yet realized that he’s awake, and thinking back on the afternoon’s events. After the names of cities had started becoming unrecognizable as far as Elliot was concerned, he must’ve fallen asleep. He remembers vaguely waking up for a few minutes, only a few when the car had finally stopped. At a gas station, he thinks? Tyrell was gone, but Elliot could see him walking back from the brightly lit building through the windshield, and had gone back to sleep without panic. It was…nice.

And then he remembered saying something to Tyrell, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was exactly. Something about sleep.

“You told me to stop and pull over, because I looked tired.”

Elliot turns his head again. Tyrell is looking down at him, leaning back on his elbows now. “If that’s what you were wondering,” he continues. “Then you fell asleep out here. I almost woke you up and had you get back into the car, but it’s nice out, and I’ve never seen you sleep, but you looked so peaceful.” He blinks at Elliot, lets him soak all of that in, then looks back out across the grass. Elliot briefly notes the little lights flickering out of the corner of his eye.

“You’ll forgive me if I wasn’t in a rush to spoil that for myself,” says Tyrell after a moment.

“Where are we?” asks Elliot once he’s finally woken up a little more. Tyrell shrugs.

“Essex County, I think. Close to Lake Placid. It’s a quaint little village setup.” He shrugs again. “I hear it’s nice up there this time of year.”

Elliot hums softly. “We headed there?”

Tyrell looks back at him, lips pursed. “Do you want to?”

Elliot stares back at the sky, at the little white lights dotting the enormous expanse of night. He can also see Tyrell still watching him out of his peripheral vision. He can finally breathe now. He can appreciate them now. He nods.

“Yeah.”

 


	4. it doesn't exist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just what exactly are we?  
> or lets not be fuckbuddies.

it doesn’t exist

 

 

Elliot is lying in his underwear.

The window is open, carrying a breeze through the sheer curtains, where the balcony is on display. He can hear Tyrell outside, standing on the balcony, leaning on the rail. He doesn’t smoke, but Elliot imagines that he’s standing against the early morning New York sunlight, hair slightly ruffled from the pillows and the tiny, gentle bustles of wind, cigarette dangling in between his fingers.

This is not Elliot’s apartment, and it’s not Tyrell’s brownstone either. This is a pocket of New York where neither of them are really allowed. It’s someone else’s apartment, really. It’s nice, but it doesn’t belong to either of them. Definitely not Elliot with his shitty day job.

This is one of Darlene’s haunts; the apartment actually belongs to one of the guys she fucks around with sometimes. He’s rich, good looking, but kind of a douche and naïve. He’s not Elliot’s cup of tea.

They broke in, admittedly. Darlene has the guy for the weekend, so Tyrell and Elliot can play House in his living space for now.

Elliot sighs, stares up at the ceiling and blinks.

This has never been his. He had some semblance of it with Shayla, once or twice, but those were escapades that had been more ‘in the moment drug induced’ instances. They snorted up, fucked in Elliot’s loft, and then went their separate ways. Simple as that.

But here he was, lying in someone else’s bed, with someone else’s husband.

Hm. He’d never been a mistress before.

 

(Or, would it be mister?)

 

That’s kind of the reason why they didn’t do this at Tyrell’s house. He lives a separate life from Elliot. He has Joanna, who is probably, without a doubt, way better than Elliot could ever be at being a human. He’s seen her, once. She’s pretty, pregnant, kind of cold. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person to fall in love with Tyrell Wellick, but then again, Tyrell Wellick shouldn’t have been interested in the type of person that Elliot was.

Joanna, with her cold eyes and harsh Swedish, was a better fit. Honestly, Elliot couldn’t see Tyrell with anyone but her; not like Angela with her sunshine blonde hair, and not someone like Christine, kind and quaint. Joanna was a drug, like ecstasy. She was bad for you, and if you kept coming back for her, which you would, she would use you until you were spent, and then use you again. She was the dominant force. She just liked to let you believe you could control it.

The reason why they didn’t do this at Elliot’s place either, was because Flipper had an annoying tendency to pop up whenever she wasn’t wanted, like when Tyrell finally managed to coax Elliot into being comfortable enough to even get his shirt off. The minute she made herself known, was the minute Elliot became extremely self-aware. That usually meant there was no point in finishing what Tyrell had worked so hard to start, because Elliot was not fucking with Flipper in the room.

So for privacy’s sake, and to keep two different worlds from colliding when they weren’t wanted, the two hackers had appropriated this guy’s apartment. Maybe it was a little gross and kind of disrespectful that they’d gone and fooled around in some stranger’s bed, but really, Elliot had stolen someone’s dog, and Tyrell had more or less stolen someone’s woman.

One night in a nice bed with no dogs running around was the least of their crimes.

“This isn’t real, is it?” Elliot murmurs at the ceiling.

“I can assure you, whoever you’re talking to in the ceiling, isn’t real.” Tyrell is standing in the balcony doorway. Elliot doesn’t even feel embarrassed about being caught. It’s only Tyrell, after all.

He’s at least got some sweatpants on, though they’re hanging rather low on his hips. Tyrell probably knows that, probably wears it like that on purpose. He crosses the threshold and nudges Elliot’s thigh with his foot as he crawls back into bed.

Settling down, facing Elliot on his side, Tyrell props himself up on one elbow and asks, “What are you thinking about?”

Elliot shrugs. He’s kind of bothered by Tyrell’s closeness, but he doesn’t make him move away. He says, “I met Joanna once.”

Tyrell’s face is a blank slate, and it’s that that Elliot both loves and hates about Tyrell Wellick. He can’t tell what he’s thinking when he sets his jaw like that.

All he says is, “Really?”

Elliot is going to take a wild stab and say that wasn’t a good thing. “She’s nice.”

Tyrell is not convinced. Elliot didn’t really tell a convincing lie to begin with; even he would’ve called bullshit on it.

“She’s an interesting woman,” Elliot settles for instead. Tyrell grunts and nods. Close enough. At least Elliot has enough sense to keep the full brunt of his opinion of Joanna to himself. Tyrell is still a man bound in marriage to her, after all.

“What are we?”

Tyrell actually looks confused now. “What?”

Elliot slides his eyes sideway towards the blonde. “You’re…married,” he says. He purses his lips and somewhere in the back of his throat, he whines. It’s an awkward question and this is an awkward situation, and maybe Elliot’s anxiety is freaking out. But they aren’t exactly a couple, and it feels coppery on Elliot’s tongue to say ‘boyfriends’; his head had eventually started to hurt when he thought about the ins-and-outs of their…relationship(?) for too long. It makes him cringe. What are they, besides a junkie technician and a married man?

Tyrell nods. He answers with no hesitation,“I am.”

“And I’m just a tech.” _With a morphine problem_ , but Elliot doesn’t mention that last part.

Tyrell leans over and presses his nose in the juncture between Elliot’s neck and shoulder, grinning against his pulse. “I’ve said that’s not true. If you keep saying that, I’ll have to punish you,” he says. Elliot snorts, instantly forgetting how awkward the situation had become, and moves his hands from under the pillow behind his head to covers his face. “Oh my god, don’t ever say that again,” he laughs.

Tyrell pecks his jaw and laughs, deep and warm. “If you’ll stop thinking you’re just an AllSafe technician, then maybe I’ll consider it.”

“It’s just...” Elliot stops and sighs. Was he really going to have this conversation? With Tyrell Wellick of all people? “It’s been nice. Pretending?”

“What are we pretending to do?”

“Y’know,” says Elliot, feeling less and less comfortable with the direction the conversation is going. He doesn’t make a gesture, but he figures Tyrell gets the gist of it. “This. Waking up in a different life. Kinda like we created our own little world or whatever. I dunno, I’m not good at science fiction and time-space continuum shit. You’re not Tyrell Wellick. I’m not Elliot Alderson. It’s just weird. A good kind of weird.”

And he’s rambling. Damn it.

“I just don’t want to be numb when it’s all over, if that makes any sense.”

Tyrell tilts his head curiously, looking at Elliot through his lashes. “Are you…breaking up with me?”

Elliot shrugs. “We’d have to be together for that to happen, don’t you think?” He pauses. “I dated a girl once in high school. She had pink hair and a Super Nintendo.” Elliot doesn’t know why he’d thought of her just then, or why he’d told Tyrell that.

Tyrell looks at him now, a sort of smirking grin playing at the corner of his mouth. “Well, I don’t have pink hair or a Super Nintendo,” he says. “But I’m not dead, and I don’t plan on being so for a long time. You’ve got me for as long as you want me.”

Which sounds nice at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning, but come Monday morning, it’ll be nothing more but a variable. Just a hypothetical thought in a world that doesn’t exist.


	5. catch twenty-two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tyrell has no idea what to do with elliot, or  
> elliot gets beaten up and tyrell gets jealous of a small dog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please send me prompts for this. i'm looking for ideas.

catch twenty-two

 

 

Tyrell is not allowed to help him.

Joanna, Evil Corp, his whole _fucking lifestyle_ ; it won’t let him save Elliot.

He finds him after he takes a detour to Elliot’s rundown apartment, desperately in need of something to take the edge off. The world is just too much sometimes; entirely too much and no one but Elliot Alderson understands that.

Joanna- she doesn’t get it. Tyrell’s just finished their sacred ritual, the aftercare and cleanup. It doesn’t help him relax like it should, leaving him languid and boneless in a post-coital heap on the couple’s shared mattress. He loves Joanna. But she has a way of repelling that, turning it into something of a game. She’s a cat that way, a lioness if you will.

Elliot is the only one who understands. He knows how the world works. He knows that it likes to whisper sweetly in your ear one minute, and then fuck you over, hard and feral the next. And he’s Tyrell’s safe haven, his oasis. His catch-22.

Tyrell isn’t in the mood for sex anymore, not after he’s had his fill with Joanna. He’s just looking for someone to fall into. Something to dull his mind and stop all the brain activity buzzing in his head. Elliot liked morphine. Tyrell liked Elliot.

He just wants to talk.

When he finds Elliot’s apartment empty, he can’t help the irking feeling of disappointment creeping up his spine. It’s not like he’s about to scour the entirety of the New York megalopolis to find him; Tyrell is many things, but crazy (?) is not one of them. Maybe Elliot just stepped out for something to eat. The microwave in the corner looks like its leaning on its last legs as it is, and for the life of him, no matter how many times he’s been visiting the apartment, Tyrell can’t seem to find a stove or oven anywhere. Its not like Elliot takes the precious time to cook.

Tyrell leaves the apartment and walks back to his car. He’s maybe halfway home when he notices something moving up ahead in the middle of the street. It’s shaped like a human being, shuffling along kind of like a zombie from a B-list horror movie, dragging his left leg behind him. One arm is curled around his torso protectively, as if to keep its innards from spilling out across the asphalt. Tyrell opts to just wait for the man to keep shuffling across the street, writes him off as a crackhead or just some impoverished homeless person. The headlights lick at the man’s feet as he comes to a halt in the middle of the street, Tyrell bringing the Escalade to a slow halt. He can just barely make out the face in the blinding light, but it’s one he recognizes well.

What the hell.

Tyrell fumbles with the seatbelt buckle and haphazardly throws the door open. “ _Elliot_?”

At first, he gets no reply from the figure. Then a quiet voice, like a mouse in the dark, replies, “Tyrell?” Elliot looks like his voice sounds, croaking and frayed, worse for wear and in need of a silver lining. Tyrell thinks he might’ve been crying, Elliot’s throat sounds so tight, but when he gets up close to him, he knows that’s not exactly the case.

Elliot looks like a shaking deer in literal headlights. His eyes are wide when he turns to face Tyrell, his face dirty and streaked with mud and dark, dried blood. There’s sticks and grass matted into his hair. He’s missing his jacket too, which Tyrell blames for the shivering.

Tyrell slips out of his suit jacket and goes to wrap it around Elliot’s shoulders, reminding himself to move slowly, because even when he hasn’t been beaten up and left for dead on the streets of New York, Elliot is still a bit of a panicky animal. Elliot tenses when Tyrell wraps his arm around his shoulder and uses his hands to guide him back towards the waiting Escalade.

“What happened?” Tyrell asks when they’re both in the car. He’s turned around in the middle of the street and is headed back in the direction of Elliot’s apartment. Whatever happened to him isn’t serious enough for a hospital, he doesn’t think; Tyrell’s taking him home.

Elliot shrugs, but doesn’t answer right away. He stares at the glove compartment’s handle underneath the dashboard, or maybe he’s looking at his shoes. Tyrell doesn’t know which, but either is more important to Elliot than answering the question it seems.

“What happened?” Tyrell asks once they’ve made it back to the apartment. He has one of Elliot’s arms thrown over his shoulder to help steady him as he limps into his flat. Tyrell heads them both towards the couch, but Elliot has different ideas and steers them towards his bed. Their three-legged adventure ends once Elliot drops himself unceremoniously onto his mattress, barely ignoring Flipper, who runs by Tyrell and jumps onto the bed with her master, sniffing affectionately at his face. Elliot bats good-naturedly at her, murmurs a weak hello to her.

Tyrell thumps Elliot’s leg with his thigh. Once he has his bleary-eyed attention, he jabs his thumb at the black t-shirt Elliot’s wearing. “Off.”

Elliot snorts, but props himself up on his elbows, sitting up in tender increments, pulls his shirt over his head. “Some knight in shining armor you are,” he mutters, leaning back gratefully once the shirt is gone. Tyrell can’t help but wince at that, though he disguises it with a comment on the dark bruises running up and down Elliot’s stomach.

“How many guys were there?” he asks, sitting on the edge of the bed next to Elliot. “Looks like they had a Sadie Hawkins dance on your chest.”

Elliot can’t pack enough feeling into his words. “What the hell is that?”

Tyrell takes his arm and uses it to prompt him to turn over. There’s bruising on his back too, but its not nearly as bad. “What, Sadie Hawkins? It’s dance. Like a high school dance. You’ve never had one?”

Tyrell gets up to rummage through the refrigerator for ice. He hears Elliot behind him, still lying back on the bed, “You’ll forgive me if I wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of high school tradition. I didn’t even go to prom.”

Tyrell smiles softly to himself. “Really? I guess I’m not surprised; you’re not really the promenade type. Maybe we’ll make our own Sadie Hawkins, yeah?”

Elliot laughs quietly. “I’ve got two left feet.”

Tyrell returns with elastic bandage and a plastic baggie army of ice blocks. “I’ll show you how to waltz sometime.” He flicks at Flipper, who had been licking at Elliot’s bruises while Tyrell had been gone. She sniffs at him, jumps from the bed and glares up from the floor where she sits at the foot of the mattress. “That’s disgusting,” Tyrell mutters. “You can’t let your dog lick you like that; especially when you’re injured.”

Elliot looks at him with something a little mischievous sparkling in his dark eyes, completely lucid when he challenges Tyrell, “ _Jealous_?”

The sound Tyrell makes is astounding, a cross between a scoff and an embarrassed squawk.

Elliot laughs until his ribs hurt.

“It’s not all about sex, you know,” says Tyrell, once everything’s settled down and he’s in the middle of icing the largest of Elliot’s bruises. His neck is still a little warm from Elliot’s earlier suggestion of him being jealous of Flipper’s opportunity to lap at his skin. Elliot cracks an eye open, sitting up since Tyrell began icing his bruises for him and wrapping them with the elastic bandage.

“I know. What are you talking about?”

Tyrell fishes out another bag of ice and presses it as gently as he can to Elliot’s side, a distraction. “This,” he gestures vaguely between himself and Elliot, “isn’t just for sex. I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

It goes unsaid that emotions have come tumbling into the mix as well –it really isn’t just about sex. Tyrell’s not depraved. He wants to have Elliot smile at him and only him. He wants Elliot the way he wants Joanna, the way she doesn't seem to want Tyrell. He wants, he wants, he wants. And if he had his way, he’d…he’d…

 

 


	6. koselig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> varm choklad , gulliga smeknamn , och brist på julstämning på Elliots del  
> or, hot chocolate, cute pet names, and a lack of Christmas spirit on Elliot's part

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> requested by asimaiyat  
> thanks for this and sorry it took so long for me to write it

koselig

 

 

Christmas in New York is only as magical as you make it.

No amount of Rockefeller Center shows and trees decorated like an old grandmother’s curio cabinet could ever make it more than just another cold day in another cold month. Or at least, that’s what Elliot tells Tyrell.

He knows there’s some religious background to the holiday itself, but he wasn’t really raised in that vein, and society had already mucked it down to a parody of what it was actually supposed to be celebrated for, so Elliot doesn’t really have any high hopes for when the season comes around. He kind of remembers watching old, grainy Christmas movies on the television set in his family’s living room, but those colorful characters and cheddar-cheesy songs about misfits and reindeer with bloody red noses had long since run their ‘magical’ course.

And don’t even try to walk up and down the streets during the December months. Tourists from fucking everywhere came to see New York lit up like a gaudy birthday cake for Christmas every year. That meant more congestion in the streets, more people in the stores; hell, Elliot couldn’t even walk to his apartment after work anymore without waving off at least six Salvation Army workers brandishing their little brass bells.

At work, it’s no better; one of the women on Elliot’s floor thought that it would be a good idea to get everyone in a Christmassy mood by planting mistletoe over a select few doors and cubicle corners.

One of which was Elliot’s.

He’s not about to kiss anyone, especially not Nathan from the fucking mail room when he comes up to deliver everyone’s invoices.

There’s one above Gideon’s door. Elliot actually has to stand outside the glass walls of Gideon’s office and _have him come outside_ just to avoid any awkward confrontation.

It isn’t just the Christmas holiday that grinds Elliot’s nerves. Really, if he didn’t have to hear another Christmas song, another ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’, everywhere he went, he might’ve been able to find some good in it. He didn’t have all that many friends, so it wasn’t like he was being invited to any Christmas parties, outside of the ones AllSafe threw in the break room every year. No one was bringing him presents. Excluding Darlene, all of his family were dead or lived in another state, so no one was coming to visit.

It was just so fucking cold.

From the end of October to the end of February, New York was basically a very pretty looking meat locker. Elliot was never a big guy to begin with, so the cold and his lack of body mass did not do well together. He would bundle up like it was the second coming of the ice age, but he was never warm enough. The heater in his apartment was in dire need of attention as well, but Elliot never managed to get someone to come over and fix it before the winter months set in.

Now that he has Flipper to look after, he lets her run around the lobby on her leash since it’s too cold to take her outside for very long. They’ll stand outside on the sidewalk, only three steps away from the front stairs, while she pisses on the fire hydrant. Then it’s back inside because neither of them are that willing to freeze themselves solid with a walk around the block.

Elliot wonders if Qwerty will hibernate in his little glass bowl now that it’s so cold, and worries if he should place some pocket warmers around his little enclosure so that he doesn’t freeze mid-swim.

“Absolutely not,” says Tyrell. He’s looking at Elliot like he’s just spouted something incredibly stupid, which he kind of has. “It’s not a warm-blooded creature; he’ll be fine without it,” Tyrell continues. “As long as it isn’t swimming around in a pond at the moment, your fish will be fine.”

“Qwerty prefers ‘he’, not ‘it’,” says Elliot from the couch. “And how can you be wearing the same thing you wear everyday and not be freezing?”

True enough, Tyrell is only wearing his usual dress suit indoors at the moment. He’d come in with a thick parka with the fur-lined hood and everything, but it was no lying draped across the back of the couch.

“I’m used to this weather,” is all he offers Elliot in response. “I would’ve suspected that you were too, being a New Yorker and all.”

Elliot scowls inwardly, sinking deeper into the cushions of the couch. “Do you ever think penguins get tired of living on a floating block of ice all the time?”

Tyrell’s eyebrows raise in amusement. “Are you the penguin?”

Elliot gives him death glares.

Tyrell shoves his hands in his pocket and nods to himself, thinking hard. “Alright,” he says eventually. He disregards Elliot’s curious look, mostly laced with reluctance towards whatever the hell Tyrell was about to talk him into doing. Sure enough, Tyrell reaches past Elliot and grabs his coat. “Come on. Get up,” he says. Elliot stubbornly stays put.

“Why?”

“Well,” says Tyrell, waltzing past Elliot on the couch to invade his closet in the bedroom, “for starters, I’m not all for standing around listening to you complain about the weather.” He pauses in his rifling through Elliot’s clothes and looks back over his shoulder at him. He adds in consolation, “If you don’t mind me saying.”

“And second,” Tyrell finally unearths an old jacket and a hoodie, tosses them in Elliot’s direction, then begins to go through his drawers, completely unperturbed by the fact that he is indeed invading Elliot’s personal space. “I’d feel terrible if you couldn’t at least enjoy the holiday season like a normal human being for once.” He gives Elliot a stern look, eyebrow raised for emphasis, no arguments encouraged. He tosses him two long sleeved shirts and the shitty excuse for a winter coat that Elliot owns.

“I’m not particularly normal,” says Elliot, but he’s sliding his proffered jackets and coats on anyway. Tyrell smiles, loops his scarf around Elliot’s neck over the coat and uses it to pull him in close. “No, you’re not,” he agrees, and pecks Elliot on his mouth. “You’re something completely extraordinary.”

Damn Tyrell and his smooth-talk.

He gets Elliot all piled into his Escalade and together they drive to some quaint looking little street-facing shop. There’s not a sign that advertises the name of the building, just a little smiling wooden teacup painting a weathered looking green with faded blushing cheeks hanging above the door. Elliot can see the windows have been frosted over with white paint to look like a winter snow, two tiny Christmas trees, lit with little firefly lights, and a white and blue sign that Elliot guesses is the availability hours. He’s not really sure –whatever it says is written in a completely different language.

“Where are we?”

Tyrell doesn’t answer. He holds the door open for Elliot and nods his head expectantly at the inside of the shop. A little bell above the door rings when it opens. “Come on,” he says. “We’re letting the heat out.”

Elliot shuffles forward and into the shop which is indeed pleasantly warm, and is immediately knocked back by the scent of fresh coffee beans and steaming chocolate froth. It’s a coffee joint –kind of obvious by the cheeky little cup o’ joe hanging up over the door outside.

The girl at the counter smiles up at them as they come in, Tyrell taking strong, determined steps with Elliot shuffling behind. “Hello,” she greets them cheerily, smile as sweet as the scent of chocolate and peppermint in the air. She has an accent, sounds like Joanna and Tyrell’s, but stronger. “Welcome to _Koselig_ ; my name is Elise, may I take your order?” she talks quickly, probably the effects of taking people’s orders at lightning-quick speed. There’s hardly any punctuation.

Tyrell orders for himself and Elliot. “Two peppermint hot chocolates. Whipped cream, please, and a mint on top.” Elliot raises an eyebrow at the order, which Tyrell returns with a knowing smile. He sure likes his sugar.

They take a seat at one of the booths in the corner, Elliot on one side, Tyrell on the other. Elliot knows that Tyrell probably wants to be sitting next to him, but he isn’t pushing it; he’ll probably try for intimacy later once they’ve both warmed up on these hot chocolates.

“What’s this place called?” Elliot asks him.

“ _Koselig_ ,” Tyrell replies, just as their orders are called. He gets up to grab them and returns a moment later, continuing, “It’s Swedish.”

“I kind of guessed,” says Elliot, taking a sip from his cup. The hot chocolate is served in big porcelain mugs that might better be suited as teacup shaped plant pots. It’s kind of kitschy, kind of cute. “But what’s the word mean? Coffee?”

Tyrell shakes his head. “ _Koselig,_ _mitt ljus,”_ and he smiles when Elliot kind of frowns at the sudden inclusion of yet another word he doesn’t know. ”How you feel?”

”Annoyed.”

”Warm?”

”Feels good. Is that what _koselig_ means?”

Tyrell takes a sip of his drink, swiping the candy off the top of his whipped cream with his index finger and popping it into his mouth. ”’Cozy’, _mitt ljus_. See? Winter isn’t so bad, is it?” he stretches out his hand towards Elliot and bends his pinky finger at the joint. Elliot humors him and curls his own little finger around Tyrell’s. Not quite holding hands, but intimate enough for it to really mean something to the both of them. That pretty much sums up their relationship, Elliot thinks later on when they’re back at the apartment and Tyrell has taken it upon himself to _hålla humöret varmt;_ doesn’t need to be a huge display, just big enough for the both of them.

”We’ve got the cold weather outside, and you and me, and some warm drinks,” sayd Tyrell now, ”and _koselig_.”

”Okay,” says Elliot. ”You got me. You gonna tell me what the other word means now?”

”What word?”

Elliot struggles with the pronunciation, which makes Tyrell smile into his mug and Elliot go a little pink around the ears and roll his eyes. ”Help me,” he says, ”you know what I mean.”

”Do I?” asks Tyrell, looking smug. ”Swedish is a very complex language, Elliot. For all I know you could be telling me that the sky is made of pink elephants.”

”Don’t be like that. ’ _Mitt ljus_?’”

Tyrell has spoken it before, but Elliot hadn’t really made the connection that it was something of a nickname directed at him, since Tyrell had only ever really called him that in whispers in the dark or through moans, which was usually brushed off as the equivilant of pillow talk considering the circumstances. Lots of weird things were said when you were knee deep in an orgasm and couldn’t concentrate enough to form a coherent sentence.

Tyrell leans across the table and kisses Elliot. He tastes like chocolate and peppermint; not unpleseant.

”I will tell you later,” he murmurs against Elliot’s chocolate covered lips. Elliot kind of shivers at that.

Thank god for _koselig_.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> send me more requests.   
> give me a reason to keep plowing through college finals


	7. puddlewatch

puddlewatch

 

When it rains, it pours and, wow, is it pouring.

“I can’t believe this,” grumbles Tyrell from under the safety of the umbrella. He hadn’t brought an umbrella to work today, but thankfully the last person left at lunch was Elliot, tapping away at his computer. Tyrell had pounced then and there.

“It’s not so bad,” says Elliot. “It’s nice.”

Tyrell glances sidelong at him, unimpressed. He knows that Elliot likes the rain, likes the calmness of it. He likes the smell of the wet earth, the way the sky turns gray and dark. Its exciting when summer storms roll through and Elliot is probably the only person in the world who would enjoy being stuck in a hurricane.

“Only you would find some kind of enjoyment out here,” says Tyrell, grimacing at the chill in the air, the stink of damp asphalt. He preferred the rain to be gone when he was forced to take a walk outside. It wasn’t posh, it was just practical; you could catch your death of chill out here.

Tyrell keeps his eyes forward, while Elliot stays watching the ground. “What are you doing?” Tyrell asks.

Elliot pauses in his work, his eyes flickering up from the wet ground to meet Tyrell’s in a quicksilver motion. “Watching for puddles.”

“There’s plenty of them around here,” says Tyrell, his brows furrowing in confusion. Elliot nods, still watching the ground. “So you don’t step in any of them.”

Oh.

“That’s…kind of you.”

“It’s nothing.”

The rain patters softly against Elliot’s umbrella, running in rivulets down the sides. Elliot bumps against Tyrell sometimes, gently pushing him out of the way of the puddles they come across. It works a few times, until someone in an SUV comes barreling down the street, sloshing dirty rainwater up from the curb and onto Tyrell’s feet.

Or it would’ve if Tyrell hadn’t immediately skittered away, bumping into Elliot and sending them both into the open rain. At least their shoes were dry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then they kissed under the umbrella, the end.  
> send me prompts i dont know what you people want.


	8. fingerprints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> elliot has bruises.

fingerprints

 

It hurts.

It’s supposed to be a good kind of hurt though. Was there such a thing as a ‘good’ kind of hurt?

_(when you run a really long time and your muscles burn?)_

_(when Elliot snorts his drugs and feels numb?)_

A satisfying ache grips Elliot’s hips like railroad spikes pinned through delicate bone. Golden railroad spikes, so the pain feels less dirty and awful.

There are bruises shaped like fingers there, deep dark purple against his skin. And cold now.

It hurts.

Tyrell has his hands around Elliot’s throat. It hurts, has bruised, hot and black and shaped like teardrops around the skin of Elliot’s neck. Tyrell’s hands are a double-edged sword. They hurt and protect –bruising love marks from where he pulled Elliot close, and stealing the breath from his lungs in more ways than one.

It hurts, because even though Tyrell says otherwise, Elliot can’t figure out what he did wrong. Well, there’s a shit-list full of things that Elliot’s done wrong in his life, but Tyrell never seemed to mind them. It wasn’t like he had a spotless record either.

Elliot wonders if it’s punishment; not from Tyrell but the universe itself. He’s never been a religious man, not since he was young and raised Catholic in the loosest sense of the word. He doesn’t believe in karma or anything like that, but there’s really nothing else to explain why Elliot thinks Tyrell looming over him with his hands around his throat is punishment.

He’s singlehandedly thrown the world into turmoil. He killed the hydra, didn’t even have the decency to give it a merciful death. No, he had wanted to make them suffer. He’d gone all Marie Antoinette on the thing and sawed the monster’s head off with the dullest axe he could find. Where was the humanity in that?

Did that really make him no better than the cold conglomerate he’d worked so hard to take down? A cold, dead thing with no remorse, no feelings at all, that gobbled up people’s lives without a thought?

Elliot hadn’t wanted to become what he hated most. Liberation, he thought as Tyrell’s thumb accidently brushes roughly over his bobbing Adam’s apple, is just a fancy word for slavery.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Elliot hadn’t wanted to be that fire. So what better way to free the people than by letting Tyrell smother that flame?

 

 

 “Why’d you stop?”

Tyrell’s brow furrows in understandable confusion. “What?”

“You stopped,” repeats Elliot simply, reaching up to grab Tyrell’s hands and situate them back around his throat. Tyrell doesn’t move them, but he doesn’t apply any pressure either. It’s just a nice anchor. “I’m not trying to kill you,” says Tyrell blankly, like Elliot had just asked him a stupid question. He wasn’t wrong.

“I realize this is a precarious situation,” he continues clinically, slightly out of breath and panting, “but this wasn’t supposed to be murder.”

Like the lady on the rooftop.

“Would you if you could?” asked Elliot.

Tyrell smirks, and says, “I think we both know the answer to that,” even though there’s nothing funny about it and Tyrell actually sounds kind of sad. “Did you want me too?”

“Kind of.”

“And why is that?”

“I kinda deserve it, don’t you think?”

“I’m the last person who you should ask that to.”

Elliot frowns. Tyrell relents. “No,” and says it firmly like he means it. “Victor’s remorse, much?”

“You could say that,” says Elliot. Tyrell exhales through his nose. “Elliot.”

Elliot sighs and rolls his eyes. There’s an argument coming on.

“Elliot.”

“What?”

“I’m not your therapist, but I think you should get over it. Come to terms with what you did and know that if you went back and changed any of it, the world would be a darker place,” says Tyrell.

“Said no one ever.”

“Says I,” Tyrell insists.

“I don’t believe you. Give me one reason.”

Tyrell looks at Elliot with straight face. “Because then I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am with you, now would I?”

Elliot rolls his eyes and turns over. “Oh, please.”

Tyrell sinks down next to him, shirtless and on his side. “No really,” he says and his voice is muffled on Elliot’s shoulder. He presses a kiss to it and grins when Elliot lazily flaps his hand at him. “I’d let the world go up in flames,” he says, not unkindly, “before I gave up on you.”

Elliot wants to frown, wants to be mad. He burrows his face into the sheets before Tyrell can see the burning, bashful smile forming on his lips.

“How fucking romantic.”

“I know.”

 


	9. ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> elliot is tired of being surrounded by ghosts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> requested by joyofsatou.  
> thank you so much for this.

ghosts

 

Elliot doesn’t know what happened.

Okay, maybe that’s a lie.

He fucking relapsed is what happened.

Dammit. _Not again._

When he wakes up, no one is there.

His dad is gone. Darlene is gone. There’s no one there expect him. He's tired of being surrounded by nothing but ghosts.

He peels himself off of the carpeted floor, no time to wonder how long he’d been lying there. His nose is chapped and feels as though its on fire, from snorting, no doubt. He can feel the phantom remnants of his previous high buzzing lazily through his body, mixed with coarse guilt and the tang of self-deprecation.

Goddamn it.

Fucking _hell_.

He’s alone again. That thought alone scares him out of whatever sparse remnants of a numb high that had been hanging onto the frayed ends of his mind. He’s in his apartment, on the floor by the coffee table. Vaguely, he remembers the night he’d gone through his withdrawals and inevitable detox. At least Mr. Robot had been there.

Now, he had no one; not even _him_.

Elliot feels the heat behind his eyes before the tears even begin pricking across his lids. He’s so fucking pathetic. He’s a miserable fucking bastard who deserved to be alone because he couldn’t do anything right. He couldn’t stay clean. He couldn’t save the world. Hell, he couldn’t even remember who his own family was.

He was awful. He was alone.

 

 

The next time Elliot wakes, he’s not alone.

He can feel them; a presence outside his door, just standing there, waiting to be let in. It’s almost like Elliot can feel them staring at him through the peephole, even though that shouldn’t be possible. Elliot stares at the door for longer than is necessary from over his arms folded across his knees. He stares at it like the door will magically open and make him not be alone anymore.

And then the knock comes.

It startles Elliot more than it should, especially considering he’d known someone was out there the entire time. It startles him even more when the door just swings open, and he’s kind of surprised and also very _not_ to see the tall blonde standing there in the open doorway.

Elliot doesn’t even know why Tyrell even bothered knocking in the first place; he’d made it very clear numerous other times that if he wanted to be in Elliot’s apartment, then he would _be_ in Elliot’s apartment. Knocking was a curtesy that both of them knew was not at all needed.

Blue eyes flicker around the apartment before zeroing in on Elliot curled up in the corner, an intensity burning behind them that felt completely tangible to Elliot. It was almost as if Tyrell was in front of him, hands braced on his shoulders, staring him dead in the eye with only a hair’s distance between their noses. Elliot hates the way he shrinks back under Tyrell’s palpable gaze, like he’s already detesting the physical contact, even though Tyrell is, like, five fucking feet away from him.

The moment Tyrell sees that though, his eyes immediately soften, which is odd to Elliot. Tyrell’s eyes are like computers, hard like stone and even harder to read, cold as ice chips and calculating too. He was always thinking behind those eyes, logical and thoughtful; it was more unnerving than usual to see them soften with feeling –nothing logical about them now.

“Elliot.”

Tyrell says it like a sigh of relief, or maybe it’s better off as an exasperated huff because there is no way he isn’t disgusted by Elliot’s perpetual awfulness.

“What do you want?” Elliot croaks, his throat dry and cracking with disuse. He doesn’t bother to move from his spot on the floor, his knees curled tight against his chest. He’d been trying to make himself as invisible as possible; maybe if he curled in on himself tightly enough, he would disappear altogether.

“ _Elliot_ ,” Tyrell says, repeating Elliot’s name for the second time. This time, it sounds annoyed, and Elliot immediately brings his gaze down to the floor where he drills holes into the wood with his eyes. He hears Tyrell sigh, the sound of his expensive Allen Edmonds walnuts scuffing across the floor as he invites himself fully into the apartment.

Elliot watches as the toes of Elliot’s shoes come into view, just barely coming in contact with his own bare feet. They stay still, both of them, for a long time. And then Tyrell kneels down, trying to make eye contact with Elliot. Elliot adamantly avoids it.

“Elliot,” says Tyrell, soft and gentle, and Elliot knows this voice. It’s the voice Tyrell uses when he’s trying to convince people, when he’s playing the businessman and trying to bargain and deal his way into people’s good graces. It’s the version Elliot hates most.

“Elliot, look at me.”

Elliot finds something interesting to look at in the space between his and Tyrell’s feet.

Tyrell sighs, sounding annoyed again. Another piece of Elliot crumbles.

“Look at me, _mitt ljus,_ ” says Tyrell, softer now. “What’s going on? Why are your eyes red?”

Elliot blinks, buries his head deeper into his arms. He lets Tyrell kneel there in front of him in complete silence for an ungodly amount of time, before Tyrell decides to move. Elliot thinks he might be getting up to leave, having no luck at coaxing him into a discussion, but Tyrell surprises him by cramming himself into the corner with him, squeezing in next to him and crossing his long legs at the ankle instead of mimicking Elliot. He’s too tall to fit comfortably anyway.

Serves him right.

 

 

Elliot holds out for almost half an hour before he speaks up finally.

“What are doing?”

Tyrell shrugs. “I figured you would tell me what I wanted to know eventually. Made sense to just wait until you did.” He turns to Elliot now. “Are you ready to talk?”

Elliot doesn’t move to look at Tyrell. He doesn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes. He doesn’t want to see the disgust on his face. But more importantly, he doesn’t want to be alone. So he sighs inwardly.

He talks.

“I’m fucking awful.”

“Oh, Elliot, not this again.”

Elliot winces.

“You’re not awful. You’ve got more good in you than you give yourself credit for,” says Tyrell. Elliot shakes his head, closing his eyes.

“No,” he says.

“ _Yes_ ,” says Tyrell.

“No,” Elliot whispers. “I fucked up.”

“People do that sometimes, _mitt ljus_ ,” Tyrell says uncharacteristically gentle. “It happens.”

“I fucked up,” Elliot repeats, like he’s only talking to his arms. “I relapsed.”

At that, Tyrell goes silent.

So he’s finally realizing what a shit human being Elliot truly is; wondering why he’s sticking around, what he ever fucking saw in this mistake of an absolute fucking human disgrace.

“Did you forget again?” Tyrell asks, quieter this time.

Elliot’s silence is all the answer he needs. Elliot forgot again, and he got fucked up on morphine _again_ , and now he’s alone. _Again_.

“That’s fine,” says Tyrell eventually.

“You don’t get it,” Elliot says bitterly.

“I don’t, you’re right,” Tyrell muses. “This isn’t really my forte; I’ve never had to deal with what you’re dealing with, I’ll readily admit that. But, Elliot, that doesn’t mean that I’m just going to pretend that it doesn’t exist. What, did you think I was just going to go away because you made a mistake?”

Elliot doesn’t answer, stares at the floor.

“What did I tell you when we met?” says Tyrell. “ _’You won’t forget me’_. I meant that. That means I’m going to be around for a while, no matter how many mistakes you make. That means that you won’t be alone as long as you’re stuck with me.”

Tyrell takes Elliot by the back of his neck, turning him to look him in the eye. He presses their foreheads together, eyes slip closed, and he says softly, “ _Även stjärnorna kan inte lysa utan mörker_. It will be okay, Elliot.”

He doesn’t feel whole right away. But Elliot can slowly feel himself ebbing into a numbness, not unlike the morphine’s side effects. This time, however, it leaves him feeling less empty than the morphine, more full, like Tyrell’s murmured words are filling him up with warm light, slowly, slowly. He still has his doubts, so he forces himself to fix it.

He kisses Tyrell.

It’s just a gentle brushing of lips, a lingering touch that isn’t deep enough to pull forth anything other than reassurance. It’s not supposed to be arousing. It’s not supposed to be romantic. It’s just Elliot asking Tyrell to soothe his worries. _Tell me everything will be okay. Don’t let me be alone again._

Tyrell returns it, as equally featherlight as Elliot. He understands.

”It will be okay, _mitt ljus_ ,” he breathes, whispering agaisnt Elliot’s lips.

Elliot can’t stop himself from sighing. ”You really have to tell me what that means.”

He feels Tyrell grin. ”In time.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been in a rough place lately; sorry for the lack of activity. send me requests and prompts an stuff here on ao3,  
> or here, at  
> neonflavored.tumblr.com/


	10. static

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> elliot's brain is filled with static.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> requested by meltypng from tumblr.  
> thanks for stopping by to request this prompt and i hope it was everything you wanted. :)

static

 

 

Sometimes all Elliot feels like he has in his head is static, like someone’s changed to the wrong television channel in his brain and all that rattling around in his head is fuzzy, grainy black and white shapes that he can’t make out.

Usually it happens at night, when it’s too quiet in his head and he’s got nothing but the sounds of his own restlessness to dwell on in the dark. It’s been happening a lot lately now that he’s moved back in with his mother.

Especially since Tyrell abandoned him.

 

 

Okay, well…maybe it wasn’t fair for Elliot to accuse Tyrell of abandoning him. After all, he had no idea if he’d been the one to chase him away –he was pretty good at that anyway. It just wasn’t fair, you know? Everything was turning out kind of okay. Elliot had won. Fsociety had won.

Tyrell was there with him and everything was kind of okay.

And then everything turned into static.

Tyrell was gone. E Corp was showing signs of fighting back, and as usual, Elliot had ruined everything. Flipper was gone. If Qwerty’d had legs and feet, Elliot is sure he would’ve gone too. Elliot still had his schedule, but that wasn’t the same as having…

Elliot can’t bring himself to finish that thought.

It’s very dangerous, especially with _him_ in the room.

Mr. Robot is lounging on Elliot’s bed, sitting there with his feet on the mattress like he owns the place. He’s just watching Elliot write in his journal, like usual, but Elliot can practically hear the question on the tip of his tongue already being spoken.

“Are you gonna shoot me in the head again?” he asks before Mr. Robot can speak up.

He can see Mr. Robot tilt his head in quizzical curiosity in his mind’s eye. “Only if you insist on keeping this little game of yours up,” he replies smoothly, almost easily, if Elliot didn’t already know that he was losing patience with him.

“Guess that’s a yes, then,” murmurs Elliot and goes back to writing.

“Get over it,” says Mr. Robot, the sound of him knocking his head back against the wall in exasperation making Elliot twitch in annoyance. “So you don’t know where Tyrell is. Big fuckin’ deal. We’ve got work to do; finding Wellick will be the least of your worries if we don’t finish what we started and quick.”

“I’m not doing anything with you,” says Elliot, sounding tired. He’s already danced the masochism tango with Robot once before; it’s getting to be a tiresome sub-routine and his feet are starting to hurt.

“I’ll make you,” says Robot, his voice level and even. Dangerous.

“You can try,” says Elliot smoothly. He’s not scared. A figment of his imagination can’t hurt him. It can’t, it can’t, it can’t.

Mr. Robot shakes his head. “I should’ve left this to your sister,” he says, and something inside Elliot shifts. Robot…he’s not giving up, is he?

Elliot pauses writing for a moment, ears perked.

“She wouldn’t have left things unfinished,” Mr. Robot continues, “she’s out there trying to finish what you started and you don’t even have the fucking decency to go and help her. _She’s_ got determination. _She_ knows how important this is.”

“She’s also not a fucking screw up,” adds Elliot coolly. “Maybe you _should_ go and bother her instead, ‘cause I’m not doing this anymore.”

Mr. Robot’s eyes narrow and Elliot can feel his glare burning like cigarette stings in the back of his head. “Who made you like this, Elliot? What happened to you wanting to change the world? What, you lose some guy in a suit who promises you great things and automatically you lose interest? News fucking flash, Elliot, that’s the same guy who worked for E Corp, so why does it matter? You can finish this without him. You certainly never needed him to begin it!”

Elliot sighs. “You’re angry. This wouldn’t happen if you would just tell me where Tyrell is.”

“ _It doesn’t matter_ ,” spits Mr. Robot, and Elliot can hear him getting to his feet. He’s done it now. He hears him cross the floor, counts his footsteps until he can feel him standing right behind him. Then he’s being pulled to his feet by his arm, and he realizes that Mr. Robot’s grip on him actually _hurts_.

A figment of his imagination can’t hurt him, he reminds himself in the very back of his mind, it can’t, it can’t, it can’t.

“You hear me, kid? It doesn’t fucking matter. Tyrell Wellick is gone, and if he doesn’t ever come back then that’s just too fucking bad,” Mr. Robot hisses in Elliot’s face. “Why are you so hellbent on him anyway; not like someone like you ever had a conscience to begin with, hacking anyone and everyone, even someone who’s willing to put up with you? Why are you trying to ‘fix’ things all of a sudden?”

“Why are you trying so hard to make me forget him?”

Elliot realizes he’s made a mistake the moment he hears the words rocket out of his mouth. It’s even worse when he sees Mr. Robot’s eyebrows furrow in slight confusion, and then raise in understanding. He knows.

Oh shit, no, he _knows_.

When anger finally, mercifully, crosses Mr. Robot’s face, darkening his features and twisting his mouth and brows, Elliot breathes out the breath he wasn’t even aware he was keeping trapped in his lungs. When Mr. Robot shoves him away, Elliot is ready, his body braced so that he doesn’t go stumbling back into his table and knock everything within arm’s length over.

He’s even ready for the shot when it comes.

It’s the same gun that Mr. Robot uses every other time before this one, but this time, this bullet has a different meaning. Each bullet in Elliot’s brain is there for a reason, mostly underlying frustration on Robot’s part.

This one is out of anger. He’s done. He’s done playing around with Elliot it seems. He’s had enough; he’d already been on the brink of insanity to begin with, but now, he’s finished. Elliot’s tipped him over the edge, and now he’s doing something about it.

He shoots twice.

Elliot can hear him shouting at him in his curious state of limbo, shouting that he's messing up his brain, that he needs to get over this stupid fucking teenage crush and get serious, but it sounds like he’s underwater and Elliot doesn't really have the strength to give a damn at the moment. His ears are ringing from the gunshots, but it too sounds like it’s being muffled, diluted.

He lies there on the floor halfway under his table, blood pooling around his head and seeping into the paper of his journal that had fallen to the floor. All he can think is that he’s got two bullet holes in his head, and he’s got more to look forward to, because he can’t let it go.

He can’t let _him_ go.

He won’t.

He can hear Mr. Robot shouting at him to do just that, and he thinks about telling him later on that he does not lack determination like Darlene, that he's determined for other reasons, but he doesn't think Mr. Robot will appreciate that, and anyway, he can’t really hear himself think over the static seeping through his brain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> send prompts or come say hi here at ao3 or here at neonflavored.tumblr.com/


	11. static, part ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> elliot is in control.  
> self-indulgent mild horror that piggybacks off of the previous prompt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a chapter prior to this one. please read that one first.

static, part ii

 

 

Elliot is late for church group.

Well, shit.

It’s not his fault, though; it’s not exactly easy to compose yourself after being shot in the head. Twice.

When he gets there, the usual group members are alreay seated and going through opening prayers. Elliot’s not a very religious man, so he doesn’t say much, especially not to a god he’s not even sure exists. He watches his fellow group members bow their heads and close their eyes in prayer. He wonders what they’re thinking about right this second.

He tries not to think too much, he can already feel the beginnings of a massive headache forming behind his forehead, right where the bullets make contact with his skull. He doesn’t want them to start to bleed.

The church group meeting goes on as usual.

They introduce themselves to each other, like anyone new ever comes to these meetings on a regular basis. They read scriptures from the Bible. Someone usually chimes in with a passionate ‘Amen’ during this part, and Elliot, for the love of him, can’t understand why.

It isn’t until the leader starts reading from the night’s passage that something sort of clicks in Elliot.

“’For such men are false apostles’,” reads the group leader in a solemn voice, “’deceitful workers masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light’.”

Elliot almost laughs. Almost.

If only they knew.

Mr. Robot is the devil, Elliot knows this for certain, disguised as someone who could show Elliot the way. And he knows that he himself is the false apostle; he thought he’d been doing the right thing before, thought he’d been liberating the world and changing it for the better.

Yeah fuckin’ right.

That bastard in his brain had taken the face of his father and warped it into something terrible. He’d made it clear that he didn’t care about Elliot at all; Elliot was only a means to an end. He only wanted to keep Elliot around to finish the work that he had started, and when Elliot had wanted to call it quits, he’d tried to force his way back into control.

He’d just been using Elliot. All this time, he’d been the one in control, and Elliot hadn’t seen it until he’d gotten in too deep.

He’d been played.

Elliot blinks then. Something wet rolls into his eye and he immediately brushes his sleeve under his eyelid. The fabric comes away wet and red, and Elliot furiously swipes his wrists over his face. Red streaks his skin instead of clear tears like he’d expected, and instantly, Elliot knows that something is wrong.

Reaching up with shaking fingers, he brushes his fingers across his forehead, his fingertips slipping almost immediately in the blood. He grazes bullet hole number one, the fingernail of his pointer finger tiptoeing into the wet inside by accident, feeling the scrape of bone and blood. A flash of pain makes Elliot jerk his hand away, staring down at his bloody fingers.

Blood is rolling freely down his face, down the bridge of his nose, over his eye and across his cheek. He watches it drip to the floor and tries to reign in his breathing. He tells himself to keep calm. He tells himself that it’s okay, everything is fine. Mr. Robot is not here; he’s in control now. He looks up, feeling eyes on him.

The church group members are looking at him, but they don’t look surprised. They don’t even look shocked or disgusted. Their faces are blank slates, expressionless.

The leader is still reading, but her eyes are focused on Elliot instead of the Bible in her hands.

“ _’The fearless professor is defenseless_ ,” she reads, her head tilted at an odd angle, like she might be struggling to hold her head upright, and is joined by the rest of the group, all reading the same scripture in identical monotone voices, “ _’and Satan takes him captive at his will; the desponding professor has no heart to avail himself of his advantages, and is easily brought to surrender_.”

The blood is coming faster now, pulsing out of each bullet wound in time with Elliot’s heartbeat. He’s breathing too quickly now, feels lightheaded, feels panic rising hot and heavy like melted iron in his chest.

He doesn’t want to hear anymore.

He’s in control. He’s in control. _He’s in control!_

_I’M IN CONTROL._

It’s painted in big bright red letters against Elliot’s eyelids as he repeats his mantra over and over again, over the voices of the group members, monotonous and loud, chanting like cultists under a full moon.

_I’M IN CONTROL._

Elliot isn’t sure who screams it first: him or Mr. Robot, standing there in place of the leader.

(“ _The price paid for man’s redemption was the precious blood of Christ,_ ” the voices echo loudly, booming in Elliot’s ears)

Mr. Robot smiles, and it’s not Elliot’s father’s smile. This one is cruel, cold and toothy like some fanged beast with cold black eyes crinkling at the corners behind his glasses. “ _Little lamb_ ,” he croons with a mocking fondness, looking at him the way a father might, except the smile is all wrong like he wants to hurt Elliot, watch him suffer for his own pleasure, and Elliot is sure that he has never heard a voice sound so horrible.

“ _Little lamb_ …”

It grates on Elliot's psyche like clawed fingernails over gravestones, and he's sure now that if he wasn't already batshit crazy, he definitely is now.

Someone screams in Elliot’s ears, shrill like some hellish whistle or siren, and then next thing he knows, he’s jerking in his seat.

 

Elliot snaps awake, almost jerking himself out of his chair.

He hears himself breathing hard and fast, and immediately remembers: his head. He quickly reaches up, brushes his hands across his forehead. His hands come away wet, but there is no red there. It’s just sweat, cold and uncomfortable, a reminder of what has happened.

Or, rather, _hasn’t_.

He looks around at the rest of the group. Everyone else is sitting upright in their chairs, looking relaxed or bored, or engrossed in what the leader, her eyes back in the Bible, is saying. He doesn’t see Mr. Robot anywhere.

 

 

When Elliot gets home, the phone rings, like it’s been waiting all evening for him to come home to answer it.

Reluctantly, Elliot answers it.

“Hello?” he whispers into the phone; whispers, because that’s the only thing he can bring himself to muster at this point. He’s still shaken from the church group meeting.

For a while, the other end of the line is silent. Elliot stands there in the foyer, ear pressed against the phone, waiting.

After a while, he hears a soft laugh. It’s low and deep, but it doesn’t sound mean or cruel, doesn’t remind him of cold black eyes and fanged grins and bleeding head wounds.

“Bonsoir, Elliot.”

 

 

That night Elliot tries to pray.

_dear lord rid me of this thing inside me and give me peace from this demon before i blow my fucking brains out_

_in your name i pray amen_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hi or send prompts here at ao3 or here at neonflavored.tumblr.com/


	12. bruises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the pain, when it comes, is not from the bruises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> season two is hell on my mind.

bruises

 

 

If you only knew the bare minimum of what Elliot was like, you’d probably be confused by the way he registers touch and intimacy.

You’ve probably seen him on the streets, avoiding everyone within arm’s length using this weird little ballet to keep from accidentally brushing against someone. Sudden movements startle him. You can’t stand too closely to him or you’d probably risk him just wandering off in favor of some personal space. He doesn't like getting attached because that's another type of intimacy, one that he's just not ready for yet.

Tyrell Wellick disobeys all of those rules.

Watch:

When Tyrell comes back, his first instinct isn’t to apologize for being gone. It’s not to explain himself or beg Elliot’s forgiveness.

When Tyrell Wellick comes back, his first order of business is to fuck Elliot stupid.

He doesn’t invite himself into Elliot’s apartment as usual; he doesn’t have a key to the new place, and breaking into an apartment owned by –from what Tyrell had managed to scrape up from the hacking he’d done in the U.S. Postal Service’s address files- Elliot’s mother. He knocks, content to be a sly little shit and make Elliot guess who might be at the door.

When Elliot opens the door, Tyrell turns, smiles and says, “Bonsoir, Elliot.”

Elliot stares at him, mouth slightly open, eyes wide as usual. They stare at each other for longer than necessary between two people, and then Tyrell says, “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

Instead, Elliot slaps him.

It’s well-deserved, really. How could Tyrell just show up on Elliot’s doorstep like that acting like he hadn’t been gone for an ungodly amount of time, making Elliot question everything and anyone-

Elliot grabs Tyrell by the front of his gray hoodie –he doesn’t seem fazed by the fact that Tyrell is out of his usual impeccable suit and tie combination, probably for the sake of inconspicuousness- and yanks him through the door.

“ _You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve_ ,” Elliot hisses, his eyes wide enough to bare the barely contained rage boring through them. Tyrell grins and wraps his long fingers around Elliot’s wrists, connected to the hands still grabbing the front of his hoodie.

“Maybe so,” he says softly, impossibly close to Elliot’s lips. “But I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Elliot doesn’t shy away when Tyrell kisses him. He falls into step when Tyrell walks them back against the foyer wall, pressing almost uncomfortably against Elliot’s body.

“I hate you,” he mutters against Tyrell’s mouth, before going back to kiss him again, because he’s missed him and he’s totally in denial.

Tyrell knows this. He smirks. “No you don’t, _mitt ljus_. Are you alone today?”

Elliot nods, unable to breathe and form coherent sentences at the moment. Tyrell has kissed him dizzy, and he’s kind of okay with it. He half-chokedly moans at him in a way that kind of sounds like some kind of affirmation. Tyrell smiles wide and warm, laughing under his breath and glances up the stairs.

“Up there?”

Elliot purses his lips and nods.

“Unless you’d prefer the kitchen table?” adds Tyrell cheekily, but allows Elliot to squeeze out from underneath him and lead the way up the stairs. They all but run up the flight of old mahogany stairs, and they’re both panting by the time they slip into Elliot’s room, even though there are only, like, ten stairs in total.

Tyrell is immediately carnal.

He all but slams the door shut, makes the upper level of the apartment rattle with the force of it, and open-palm shoves Elliot into the mattress.

Distantly, Elliot thinks that this is the same room that he’s been shot in more than once by his dead father. That it’s a little weird, bears the same level of awkwardness as fucking on your parent’s bed. And, _oh_ -

Okay. Elliot forgets about that almost immediately with Tyrell crawling all over him on all fours and traps Elliot’s hipbones between his knees. The room is colored with midday gray light filtering through the windows, like static or overcast skies, but it seems like there’s bright bubbles of pink and blue bursting in Elliot’s vision, edged with gold like some trippy fantasy. His breathing comes hard and fast, and he can hear Tyrell near panting above him, probably trying to restrain himself with the way he keeps flexing and readjusting his hold on Elliot’s wrists on the mattress.

“I still don’t like you,” says Elliot a bit breathlessly.

Tyrell’s eyes are sharp, his irises dark and zeroed in on Elliot like a predator stalking prey. Any trace of the Tyrell that had been soft around the edges earlier is gone, replaced with hard angles and jagged edges. It reminds Elliot of porcupines, and that thought makes him laugh.

“ _Vær stille_ ,” hisses Tyrell, and despite the underlying ferocity of whatever the hell Tyrell had just spat at him, Elliot giggles, because he really can’t help it. Still, it does register in the back of his ecstacy-addled brain that whatever Tyrell just said is probably not the same language that he usually baffles Elliot with. He should ask what it means later.

Tyrell seems to be thinking very hard above Elliot. It’s weird, Elliot’s never met anyone who had to mentally plan the course of sex, or whatever the hell they’re supposed to be doing: a married man and an ex-junkie hacker.

And Elliot has never really been the poetic type either, but he thinks now, that Tyrell is a vampire, leaving little love marks all over him. And maybe that makes Elliot a fleshy balloon full of helium kisses for just lying there and soaking it all in.

Tyrell apparently decides then, leaning down and setting his teeth, sharp and white, against Elliot’s collarbone. Nibbling is not the opperative word; its much more violent and way less romantic than that. But its perfect for what Tyrell and Elliot are. Tyrell bites until it hurts, until Elliot’s sure he’s left bruises, until he’s sure he’s broken the bruised skin and he’s drawn blood.

Elliot blinks back tears –brought on by sheer pain- and twists his wrists in Tyrell’s vice grip. There will definitely be bruises there too; he can feel them forming in the shape of Tyrell’s long fingers. The way he’s acting with Elliot, it’s almost like he’s searching for something. Trying to find something in a limited time span, like his life depends on it. Like he’s trying to savor this moment- trying to savor Elliot- because he knows he doesn’t have all day. He’s running out of time.

Elliot winces. Tyrell isn’t staying. He can’t. He has to keep moving.

”Tyrell,” he croaks, trying to get his voice to work over Tyrell leaving rough red bruises across his throat. ” _Tyrell_.”

” _Vær stille,”_ Tyrell hisses around Elliot’s throat. ” _Ikke flytte_.”

”I don’t know what you’re saying,” says Elliot, sounding choked with his throat extended and bared the way it is. ”But listen.” Elliot shifts underneath Tyrell, gets a leg up and nudges it against Tyrell’s thigh.  ” _Listen_.”

Tyrell looks down at him, confused and probably a little annoyed.

Elliot stares at him, makes sure he’s got Tyrell’s attention. ”Look. I’m right here.”

Tyrell still looks confused, so Elliot repeats, ”I’m right here. We’ve got all day. I’m right here.”

Tyrell nods. Then he nods again. ”Okay. Okay.”

 

 

The pain, when it comes later, while Elliot is alone, isn’t from the bruises.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompts and shit, you know the drill: here or there at neonflavored.tumblr.com/


	13. favorite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr prompt: impulse/impulsive.

favorite

 

 

Tyrell fucked up.

Joanna, even though she isn’t directly staring at him, is watching him closely, almost as if he’s a convict and she’s his jailer.

He’s fucked up, and she knows it.

Theirs is a relation lacking warmth, filled to the brim with deceit and secrets, but they aren’t so distanced from each other that Joanna can’t tell when Tyrell is keeping something from her. He’s the easier of the couple to read, she’s found. She can keep her face schooled, her eyes hard, her composure cool, and no one would the wiser. Tyrell was too impulsive, prone to emotion. His secrets were worn on his sleeve, though in order to read them, you had to have access to the side of him that wasn’t putting on a business-like, professional act. Joanna had all of that and then some.

The bedroom is cold. It’s true what they say: a happy wife led to a happy life.

Joanna was not happy.

Naturally, she was not a creature of compassion. That had come later in her life, when she’d discovered her future as a mother. It extended to her unborn child, and nothing further. Tyrell was no exception. As far as she was concerned, there was no love lost between them, at least from her end. Tyrell didn’t love her. What he felt was something akin to awe, fearful amazement of an ice goddess. What she felt was the adoration of said goddess, the satisfaction of having such a devoted follower. Now, it was just kind of annoying.

She can see Tyrell moving in front of the mirror out of her peripheral vision.

”How long has it been?” she asks.

Tyrell pauses in the mirror. Joanna simply gazes out the window. Her lack of eye-contact is not brought on because of her fear of knowing. Its her indifference.

”Three months,” Tyrell answers after a moment. She can hear him trying to sound aloof, like a small child trying not to show fear in the face of punishment.

Joanna blinks slowly at the window. ” _Du er en skabning af vane._ You disappoint me.”

Tyrell purses his lips in the mirror.

Joanna takes that and runs with it. ”Is she pregnant?”

Tyrell actually snorts, which honestly surprises Joanna.

”I’d call it witchcraft if she was.”

 

 

When Tyrell visits Elliot at his apartment, he doesn’t make the same mistake.

This time, its Elliot’s name he’s calling, and he gets the nicknames right.

”My neighbors probably hate me,” says Elliot lazily smoking a cigarette. ”All the noise you make.”

Tyrell grins, but in truth, he’s not at all apologetic. When it’s just him and Joanna, it’s a rather tidy affair: rarely loud, rarely animal-like. With Elliot, it’s wild, fast, but not like a quick hookup. And he can call Elliot names.

”I’ve made a mistake,” Tyrell admits after a while of lying in bed and watching the tendrils of gray cigarette smoke waft into the air.

”Really? You?” Elliot murmurs, watching the smoke as well.

Tyrell hums. ”I may have let the secret of our rendezvous slip to Joanna.”

Elliot blinks, then shifts next to Tyrell, who can feel his skin growing hot in embarrassment. ”Oh, God...you didn’t call my name, did you?”

”Not specifically,” says Tyrell, lacking the sheepishness to set himself up as an innocent. ” _Mitt ljus_. I don’t call her anything like that.”

”Never?” asks Elliot. Tyrell can already hear the realization dawning in Elliot’s voice; his and Joanna’s is not an affectionate relationship, and hardly one you’d expect from a married relationship. Elliot is Tyrell’s outlet for all the affection he can’t give Joanna. Affection is like blood in the water; Joanna will sense it, and snuff it out. You will be weak in her eyes, instead of simply a human capable of human tendencies.

Elliot was different.

Elliot could take affection, albeit in small doses. He was hardly a fan of human tendencies, but he was tolerant of Tyrell at least. Joanna could not even attest to that anymore, it seemed.

”Does that make you feel special?” asks Tyrell.

Elliot exhales smoke. He shrugs his shoulders against the mattress. ”I don’t know.”

Tyrell smiles. ”She was worried that I’d gotten you pregnant.”

Elliot snorts and shakes his head. ”What did you tell her?” he laughs.

”I told her there wasn’t a chance in hell,” says Tyrell matter-of-factly, wrapping his arms around Elliot’s waist. ”Though not for lack of trying, mind you.”

Elliot laughs again, eyes closed, head back. ”Please, please don’t say that again.”

 

 


	14. smoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous tumblr user asked for a fight/makeup.  
> sorry it took so long; no excuses really, just who i am as a person.

smoke

 

 

Tyrell is like smoke.

Everytime you see him, you always worry that something has gone wrong. Makes sense that when Elliot sees him after two months of silence, he knows something’s happened, knows that something’s gotten fucked right to hell.

So when Elliot sees Tyrell, standing there all smug and smiling, he douses that fire as fast as he can. He doesn’t need this right now.

”Bonsoir, Elliot,” says Tyrell. Elliot swings at him.

Tyrell sees it coming and dodges, wrestling Elliot against the side of the Escalade.

”That’s...not how I was expecting you to greet me,” he says, still giving Elliot a lopsided grin. ”But at least you didn’t try to stab me.”

”What the hell are you doing here?” Elliot grinds out. ”You go and fuck everything up and disappear. What are you doing here?”

”You’re certainly one to talk about fucking everything up, _mitt ljus_ ,” Tyrell says, looking more and more smug with each word that comes out of his mouth. ”If I recall, was it not you who sent the entirety of E Corp reeling? Knocked the world’s economy on it’s head? A bit hypocritical of you, if you ask me.”

At this moment, Elliot does not care for Tyrell at all.

” _And_ ,” says Tyrell, further cementing himself as a temporary thorn in Elliot’s side, ”Word on the grapevine is that you gave up on the movement. It’s not you, it’s _her_.”

”I don’t wanna do this anymore,” says Elliot. ”Isn’t that why you ran off? You didn’t want to do this anymore either? Had to get away from the thing you ruined?”

Tyrell purses his lips then, staring directly into Elliot’s darting eyes. ”You’re very accusatory. I’m assuming there’s something you want to tell me.”

”I want you to tell me the truth.”

”And that is?”

Elliot finally shoves Tyrell off of him. ”I don’t fucking know! Where did you go? Why did you leave? What’s happening?”

”Well,” says Tyrell. ”I can’t tell you everything. Especially since you’ve made up your mind not to get entangled in _you_ created.”

”With _your_ help,” says Elliot. He’s aware of how petulant that sounds, but he doesn’t care. Tyrell owes him some answers.

Tyrell smiles again. ”Hardly,” he snorts. ”This was all you, _mitt ljus_. You flatter me though to think that I could of pulled off something this elaborate. Amazing, wonderful people make amazing, wonderful things, Elliot.”

Elliot hates to admit it, even to himself, that he’s missed this, the way Tyrell wraps himself around Elliot’s heart and brain with his sweet talk. He’s missed the way his chest constricts, the way his skin gets hot. It’s Tyrell’s fault, and he has no right at this moment to do any of that.

”Fuck you,” Elliot hisses instead.

”I hardly think this is the proper place, Elliot,” says Tyrell gesturing to the empty alleyway lot around them.

”Tell me,” Elliot demands. ”I want to know. Where were you?”

Tyrell sighs, looks up lazily at the sky. ”For lack of better word, ’getting my shit together’,” he says. ”I can’t go into details; I would hate for you to get caught up in a life that you no longer want. It would ruin that rigorous routine of yours.”

”Get on with it. You owe me this.”

”You don’t say?”

”I looked for you. For weeks. I looked everywhere I thought you’d be. I only stopped because I thought you were dead,” and Elliot knew all about chasing after a dead man; he couldn’t do it again. ”And then you call me out of nowhere, and I don’t even know what you want or why you’re here.”

Tyrell watches him carefully, the gears in his head turning.

”You owe me,” says Elliot, ”You owe me this.”

Tyrell looks thoughtful, and his blue ice chip eyes turn soft. He sighs, low and deep.

”I know,” he says eventually. ”I know that you were looking for me. And there was a reason you never found me. I didn’t want you to find me. Not yet at least. I’m a wanted man, Elliot. It wouldn’t do for a murderer and a hacker to rendezvous, would it? The police would be on us like vultures.”

Elliot knows Tyrell is right. But that’s not what he wants to hear. He can understand the safety measures; he microwaved his processor chips after every big hack, so he was definitely no stranger to security.

”Why did you come back then?” Elliot shakes his head. ”Don’t tell me it was because you missed me.”

”And if I did?”

”You wouldn’t risk it. Like you said, it doesn’t make any sense for a wanted man to be seen with a dangerous hacker,” says Elliot. It sounds hollow and robotic when he says it.

”It’s simple really,” says Tyrell. ”I wanted to come back to you.”

Elliot narrows his eyes. ”You decided to come out of hiding, risk getting caught by the police, nay the FBI, just because you had a schoolgirl crush?”

Tyrell eyes him with a small grin. ”If I told you I’d missed this,” Tyrell gestures to Elliot, ” _att ben tunga er, mitt ljus.”_

Elliot glares at him. One of these days, he’ll make Tyrell tell him what those words mean. He shakes his head.

”Stop trying to sweet talk me in another language.”

”No. Is it working?” Tyrell purrs.

”No. Fuck you and your Swedish,” says Elliot. ”Forgive me if I don’t believe you for a fucking second.”

Tyrell shrugs. ”You don’t have to believe me, Elliot. Just...let me kiss you? I really have missed you.”

”No. Fuck you.”

”You keep saying that, but really, this is no place for that kind of activity.”

Elliot kicks him in the shins. Tyrell keeps laughing.


End file.
